what you are thankful for. Actually, we wrote it on these little paper leaves my mother had cut out, and she and I would go collect a branch, make a Thanksgiving tree, and somehow get it to stand up straight on the table. It was always a bit of an engineering trick, getting it to stand up as we got bigger and bigger branches each year….”
Chloe saw Kurt’s attention drifting; he was pouring himself more wine from the decanter, amber eyes roving the café for someone more interesting than her.
“Heh,” Kurt snorted. “We chowed down, popped some beers, and watched the Bowl game. Then had some pumpkin pie.”
“Oh yeah, pumpkin pie!” Dan chimed in, his hand massaging Chloe’s shoulder. They shared a look; it was only recently that Chloe had told him how much holidays made her miss her mother.
“This is fascinating.” Paolo’s shining grin passed from face to face. “So many traditions, but so different.”
Dan kept rubbing Chloe’s shoulder until he realized they were all waiting for his version of the holiday.
“Oh, my mom’s a caterer. She was always working, so we never celebrated on the actual day. We’d feast on ridiculous amounts of leftovers on Black Friday.”
“Hmm.” Paolo sipped his beer. He was the only Spaniard they knew who refused red wine, which he insisted would stain his teeth. “I think I like Chloe’s version best. Let us play her way. How do we begin?”
“Okay, it started with my dad. He’d say the grace, the blessing on the food.”
Everyone’s eyes drifted to Dan, sitting at what would be the head of the table.
“Father—” Paolo’s eyes twinkled. He reached for Chloe and Kurt’s hands. “In my family,” he said, “we hold hands for the bendición.”
“Yes, Father, lead us in the blessing,” Kurt said, and then he stuck out his tongue at Chloe. When she did it back, he reached across the table and smacked Chloe across the cheek, wailing, “She started it!”
“Did not!” Chloe said, confused but a shade pleased that Kurt’s obnoxiousness didn’t exclude her, for once.
“Oooh, Daddy’s going to lay the smackdown!” Paolo laughed, always trying out jargon in his thick accent.
“That’s exactly the kind of dad Pretty Boy will be too,” Kurt said, dropping their hands and reaching for the large wooden serving spoon resting beside the steaming paella. “‘Do you want the belt or the switch, son? Don’t let me catch you smoking all my weed again, you hear?’”
Chloe had laughed along with Kurt, serving herself some of the rice, avoiding the staring shrimp.
“No, I won’t.”
She turned to Dan, who was not digging in with the rest of them.
“I won’t. I’m going to be a good father. That is the one thing I won’t fuck up. I’m going to be a good father,” he repeated quietly, for Chloe only, their eyes locked.
“You don’t know that.” Kurt split the spine-shell of a shrimp with the pad of his thumb, tearing off the exoskeleton and legs in one jerk. In Honolulu, Dan has told her, there is an exotic dancer with an eleven-year-old girl named Leila, Kurt’s daughter. Kurt’s parents send money on his behalf, a carton of gifts at Christmas.
“No, I do. Because my dad was a shithead.” Dan reached for the spoon, put some food on his plate. “I’m going to be a good father, and I picked my girl Chloe here because I could just tell, she’s a nurturer. Look how well she takes care of me.”
“All of Tarifa knows how well she takes care of you,” Kurt said, his continued juvenile ribbing from the one night he had crashed on the couch at Chloe’s, and Dan had let out the softest of sighs while they were trying to pull off the silent fuck. Kurt never missed a chance to bring it up.
And the moment was gone, but for Chloe, never forgotten. She filed this conversation away and broke it out, polishing it whenever she found herself wondering what their future held. Dan would be a good father.
INSIDE THE AGENCY, IT is mayhem. Judith and her husband, Ken, and most of their nine adopted children are jostling through the narrow reception area, fluxing in and out of the conference room, where three bottles of Kristian Regale sparkling cider and two of Asti Spumante are open. A two-pound bag of peanut M&M’s is spilled out on the large fake wood table where they usually hold staff meetings, where Chloe was planning to sign paperwork with the McAdoos.
“Chloe!” Kenneth calls, his glassy, taxidermied-weasel eyes twinkling in